After a decade fighting to stop illegal file-sharing, the music industry will give fans today what they have always wanted: an unlimited supply of free and legal songs.

With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly embraced the file-sharing technology that threatened to destroy it. Qtrax, a digital service announced today, promises a catalogue of more than 25 million songs that users can download to keep, free and with no limit on the number of tracks.

The service has been endorsed by the very same record companies – including EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music – that have chased file-sharers through the courts in a doomed attempt to prevent piracy. The gamble is that fans will put up with a limited amount of advertising around the Qtrax website’s jukebox in return for authorised use of almost every song available.

The service will use the “peer-to-peer” network, which contains not just hit songs but rarities and live tracks from the world’s leading artists.

Nor is a lack of compatibility with the iPod player expected to put fans off. Apple is unlikely to allow tracks downloaded from its rival to be compatible with iPods, but, while the iPod is the most popular music player, it has not succeeded in dominating the market: sales of the iPod account for 50 million out of 130 million total digital player sales. Qtrax has also spoken of an “iPod solution”, to be announced in April.

Qtrax files contain Digital Rights Management software, allowing the company to see how many times a song has been downloaded and played. Artists, record companies and publishers will be paid in proportion to the popularity of their music, while also taking a cut of advertising revenues.

The Qtrax team, which spent five years working on the system, promised a “game-changing” intervention in the declining recorded music market when the service was presented at the Midem music industry convention in Cannes.

The singer James Blunt gave Qtrax a cautious welcome. “I’m amazed that we now accept that people steal music,” he said. “I was taught not to steal sweets from a sweet shop. But I want to learn how this service works, given the condition the music industry is in.”

Qtrax, a subsidiary of Brilliant Technologies Corporation, has raised $30 million (£15 million) to set up the service, which is available in the US and Europe from today. Allan Klepfisz, president of Qtrax, said: “Customers now expect music to be free but they do not want to use illegal sites. We believe this . . . has the support of the music industry and allows artists to get paid.”

Ford, McDonald’s and Microsoft are among the advertisers signed up to support what is thought to be the world’s largest legal music store. The service says that adverts will be nonintrusive and will not appear each time a song is played. As with iTunes, customers will have to download Qtrax software. They will own the songs permanently but will be encouraged to “dock” their player with the store every 30 days so it can gather information on which songs have been played.

Jean-Bernard Levy, chief executive of Vivendi Universal, said the crisis in the music industry had been overstated despite EMI’s radical cost-cutting. He said: “Look at Universal – we have double-digit profit margins. But we would like strong competition from the other major record companies to help the industry grow.” Universal has poached the Rolling Stones from EMI and Mr Levy said that others could follow as thousands of staff and artists are made redundant.

On the appearance of Qtrax, Mr Levy gave warning that the lack of compatibility between competing digital music players was as big a problem as file-sharing. And Paul McGuinness, the manager of U2, said that the sound quality of MP3 downloads was becoming an issue for bands and fans. “There is a growing consumer revolt against online audio quality,” he said.

If you weren’t one of the diehard rock fans, that purchased the import of Airbourne’s Running Wild in 2007, you now have the chance to get a copy of this CD at your favorite retailer.Today (January 29th, 2008) marks the U.S. Release of Airbourne’s Running Wild by Roadrunner Records.

Bullet For My Valentine have released their second full length disc, Scream Aim Fire.

I must admit that I don’t usually get into Metalcore bands very much, but the tunes on Scream Aim Fire will most certainly appeal to quite a few heavy metal fans out there.

This disc is full of lighting fast guitar solos, pounding drums beats, and plenty of metal screams that will unleash your inner headbanger.

The first two songs, Scream Aim Fire, and Eye of the Storm are high energy metal screamers. They start off Scream Aim Fire in a very powerful fashion.

The song Hearts Burst Into Fire caught me by surprise. Matt Tuck sings more than he screams on this one, and this tune could be a fairly big radio hit for Bullet For My Valentine.

Waking the Demon blasts into metalcore mode, and I have to admit, that I am not a fan of those metalcore style vocals. This song has both pure singing (good), and the cookie monster screams (bad). It isn’t a bad song though, and it has grown on me after listening to it a few times. The guitar work on this song is pretty impressive.

Disappear leans more to the mainstream, and Deliver Us From Evil is one of the better metal tracks that I have heard this year.

There are elements of Say Goodnight, that reminds me of Pantera’sCemetary Gates which is very cool.

I can not deny the popularity of metalcore, but I still have problems wrapping my head aroundmetalcore style vocals. I don’t have a problem with heavy metal style screams.I love ’em. The guitar work on Scream Aim Fire is stellar, but on some songs, the vocals do not work for me very well. This won’t be a problem for fans of the metalcore genre. They will get into this CD far more than I.

Scream Aim Fire will appeal to fans of Atreyu’s last album, Lead Sails Paper Anchor, most heavy metal and metalcore fans. Scream Aim Fire will arrive in stores today, January 29th. Check it Out!

For more information on Bullet For My Valentine, check out the band’s myspace page. I hope you enjoy the video below, for the the first single on the album, Scream Aim Fire.